Mary Kellogg has read from her wonderful poems at every Open House Maria and I have held, and she graced us with some old and new poems today, powerful writing about her happy and independent life. There were some firsts. Frieda came out off-leash and lay quietly as Mary read, as I read from the “Second Change Dog” for the first time, as Red and I did a therapy dog training demonstration and as I talked about the importance of understanding prey drive in dogs, something people hear little about but which bears very directly on understanding and training them.

Frieda did beautifully, I couldn’t imagine doing that a year or so ago. Flo slept underneath her rocker on the porch as usual but stayed away from the crowds. There was such a good feeling there, you could touch it. When we did our first Open House, many people told me I was mad, writers don’t open up their homes to readers I was told. They do now, and they should if they are comfortable with it. We couldn’t have been more comfortable, I could not be happier or more grateful about this opportunity to share my very wonderful life and the people and animals in it. After the talk, we all visited the donkeys and watched Red herd sheep, and we did that another three times.